Rays 5, Indians 2: Cleveland was done in yesterday by two homers for
Carl Crawford, a strong start from Wade Davis and a
sociopathic heel-turn from LeBron James. Cleveland is a tough city, though. They handled a burning river. They handled the implosion of basically the entire economy. They handle about ten feel of snow every winter. They’re hurt and angry today, but they’ll get over this. It takes a hell of a lot more than the vicissitudes of some rude young basketball player to keep Cleveland down.

Yankees 3, Mariners 1: Alex Rodriguez took well to his first night of no longer being sports’ most hated figure, hitting a two run RBI single in the ninth which proved to be the game winner.

Padres 7, Nationals 1: Mat Latos shut out the Nats over seven innings and went 2 for 3 with a home run. Four homers in all for the Padres.

Rockies 4 Cardinals 2: Look on the bright side Cardinals fans: the pen didn’t blow this one. And hey, you probably penciled in the Ubaldo Jimenez start as the one you’d drop in this series anyway, right?

Giants 9, Brewers 3: Nothing like a trip to Milwaukee to cure what ails an offense. The Giants busted out the whuppin’ sticks in sweeping the Brewers this week. Four RBI for Aubrey Huff and another home run for Buster Posey. Only bad part: Barry Zito was staked to a 6-0 lead but couldn’t even last the five innings necessary to claim the win. The Z-man — which no one has ever called him to my knowledge, but why the hell not? — hasn’t won a game in a month.

Phillies 4, Reds 3: Both Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge blow leads in the late innings, but the pen held once the game went into extras and Philly won it on a walkoff bomb from Brian Schneider. Newly-named All-Star Joey Votto stayed hot, hitting a homer of his own.

Orioles 6, Rangers 4: A day after I give them the Detective Munch treatment the O’s show some friggin’ moxie. Down 4-0 in the fifth, Baltimore claws back. They had help in the eighth though, with Frank Francisco plunking a guy to load the bases, Darren Oliver coming in and plunking the very next guy to force in a run and then walking the guy after that to force in yet another run. Oh, and Nolan Ryan is telling reporters he might not be the next owner of the Rangers now, so all in all a pretty craptacular day for Texas fans.

Blue Jays 8, Twins 1: The Twins get bombed and are now two back of the Tigers and a game and a half behind Chicago. Are they getting desperate to trade for Lee yet?

Dodgers 3, Cubs 2: Clayton Kershaw struck out 12 and Rafael Furcal went 3 for 3 with a homer and 2 RBI. Fact from the game notes: “The Dodgers took a 1,019-1,017 lead in the all-time series between the
teams that began in 1890.” What people don’t know is that the Dodgers had a distinct advantage in the series for a while, but that in 1911 it began to even up when the Cubs called up a young starting pitcher named Jamie Moyer.

Diamondbacks 10, Marlins 4: Smallest crowd in Diamondbacks’ history at 16,664. The Marlins were impressed, though. They can’t draw that on Free Money and Donuts Night.

Go ahead, deess the Feesh. I never go to the games myself – a matter of preenciple – but all I would say to my desiccated, bigoted, racist, anti-Latino, education-as-mind-controlling neofascist friends in Governor Leatherface’s dehumidified atavistic cactus paradise is, at least your ownership is trying. And you’re missing out on the air conditioning.
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What more can I say about my poor Feesh? Last night was their season in a boiled peanut shell: they come in off of beating the Bums two out of three and then get bodyslammed by the scotched Snakes. They make a bunch of errors. They get lousy pitching and even worse relief pitching. They send another relief pitcher back to treeple aye and this time they accept reality and send up a bag of freshly laundered jockstraps to take his place on the roster, inadvertantly more useful than rotating another batting practice pitcher. Was this a mistake or is it just that Scrooge McLoria knows that the bag’s check for the major league minimum will never be cashed? Being an art dealer by trade, Scrooge probably knows that Picasso used to draw a doodle on the back of the checks he wrote, so that nobody ever cashed those either?
Or maybe Scrooge is just collecting Boggs these days. Who knows?

Love the Gator comment today. I’m always reluctant to get political here, because it’s a baseball blog, but “Governor Leatherface” is a classic. I may have to change my mind if Gov-to-be Meg actually gets to sit in Sacramento. The Governator was at least amusing. There won’t be anything amusing about Meg. And almost nobody is commenting in ATH anymore, so why not?
The A’s had a great day yesterday. They were off.